Kosher for Passover Gin

What is permissible to drink at a Passover seder is terribly important to me. Having a Jewish wife, I am assured of attending two seders every year, and something is needed to get one through those four-to-five-hour ceremonies. 

I don't think I alone in my desperation. Otherwise, why would people be inventing things like Kosher for Passover gin? Obviously, there's a call for such a product. And No. 209 gin out of California was the first to answer it. The new gin bows this year. I wrote about it for Tasting Table:

A More Spiritual Spirit

The drinking options at the seder table keep getting better and better.

In the dark ages, the only option was sticky-sweet Manischewitz. Then a quality revolution gripped the wine world, and the seder's ceremonial cups became less of a trial and more of a pleasure.

Now, thanks to Distillery No. 209's new Passover-friendly gin, spirits lovers have something to celebrate.

To make kosher gin a reality, master distiller Arne Hillesland replaced No. 209's usual base spirit with a sugarcane vodka from a kosher-for-Passover distillery in South Africa.

Hillesland further altered his recipe by replacing cardamom (a no-no for Passover, since the herb comes in a pod) with California bay leaf, which has a strong menthol flavor. The resulting gin is similar to the standard 209, but the kosher version has a slightly sharper flavor and more viscous mouthfeel.

The costly process of making a kosher alternative--which includes hiring a mashgiach (a kosher supervisor) to oversee production--raises the price to $39 a bottle, about $4 more than the regular No. 209. But so far people have been willing to pay the premium: Hillesland says sales have been brisk.

So this year, have a martini (or one of these cocktails) with your matzo brei. Just remember to mix it with kosher-for-Passover vermouth--yes, it does exist.

—Robert Simonson

No. 209's usual base is corn-derived.

To ensure that the California Bay Leaf Hillesland used in the gin was kosher, and wasn't touched by any suspect machinery, the distiller actually picked the leaves from the trees himself.

The Kosher-for-Passover No. 209 will only be available in New York, New Jersey and California this year. Hillesland made 800 cases. He thinks they'll sell.

Dry Dock Wine Shop to Open in Red Hook Tomorrow

Dry Dock, the new wine and liquor store on Van Brunt Street, in Red Hook, a couple blocks from Fairway, will officially open tomorrow, Feb. 11.

I got a sneak peak at the store today. Looks like they have a decent selection of wine; I'm guessing about 200 different labels, including at least one selection from the nearby Red Hook Winery. Reds dominate, with whites relegated to the back of the shop. The liquor selection, too, seems fairly broad. A wide selection of bourbons and ryes seems to indicate they are somewhat intent on filling the hole left by the late, lamented LeNell's.

It Came From Thailand

I first encountered Mekhong, the national spirit of Thailand, in a tasting room at the 2009 Tales of the Cocktail convention in New Orleans. I had never heard of it, and wouldn't say it was exactly love at first sip, but I couldn't get around the fact that I had never tasted anything quite like it. The flavor staid with me, and since then I've seen it put to good use in several New York cocktails. Here's an article I wrote about the spirit for the January/February issue of Imbibe:

A YEAR OR SO AGO, few had ever heard of the Thailand-made distillate Mekhong other than the Thais themselves, Far East tourists and fans of the Pogues. Yes, the Pogues. The spirit is mentioned on the Irish band’s 1990 album Hell’s Ditch: “She gave me Mekhong whiskey/Put me on a breeze to Kathmandu.” But the Pogues got it wrong. Mekhong isn’t whiskey, though its copper color might fool you into thinking so. What is it? That’s a little tricky.

Describing Mekhong as a spiced Thai rum would, perhaps, be easiest, but not very accurate, or fair. The spirit is, like some rums, primarily distilled from sugar cane, but it’s blended with a five-percent injection of rice distillate, giving the flavor a distinct, sake-like backbone. Add an infusion of native Thai herbs and spices and you get something that doesn’t resemble anything else on the back bar: a light (70-proof), vaguely exotic spirit smacking of toffee, citrus, nuts and
vanilla.

The initial U.S. marketing plan was to place Mekhong in Thai and Asian restaurants, where it would have a ready clientele. But when it was discovered that many of these places lacked liquor licenses, the company that owns the brand turned to the craft cocktail movement. Today, Mekhong is rolling out across the United States and already appearing on cocktail menus in New York, Chicago, Miami and Boston. Bartenders have found that it combines surprisingly well with other cocktail ingredients, from herbal Chartreuse to spicy ginger to rich chocolate bitters. “Mekhong mixes so well,” says John Freeman, head bartender at Elizabeth in Manhattan. “The reason you get a different flavor profile than what you might get from rum is because of that five percent rice.”

In Thailand, spirits don’t have the long pedigrees that they enjoy in, say, Scotland or Kentucky. Mekhong, in fact, is the country’s first domestically produced, branded spirit. The Sirivadhanabhakdi family created the spirit in 1941 and still runs the company today. They named their product after the Mekhong River, which flows along Thailand’s eastern border—a good choice, as shortly thereafter the French attempted to divert the river out of Thailand, and Mekhong sales were
boosted by a wave of nationalistic Thai pride. It quickly grew to 20 million cases a year during that period (today productions stands at 1 million cases a year).

Fortunately, Americans don’t need an international incident for an excuse to drink Mekhong. The exotic taste, and the novelty, are more than enough temptation.
—Robert Simonson

Red Stag Doing Just Fine

Jim Beam is doing just fine with its first major launch in Jim Beam Black—the black-cherry-infused bourbon Red Stag.

I figured the red stuff was performing all right; I've seen it in plenty of back bars around New York (more in standard taverns than in high end bars so far). But the people at Jim Beam recently told me that, in the four or five months since the product was introduced, it's moved 90,000 cases, making it what they call the biggest launch in whiskey ever. For now, the distribution is limited to the U.S, but with that kind of success out of the gate, that policy won't last long.

The mind behind Red Stag is one Tom Wilkins, who, if you believe the story, had been mulling over the idea in the back of his head for years before Beam finally took a stab at it. Many names were played with, but Wilkins' original one is the name they went with. Red Stag is made by infusing four-year-old bourbon with fruit essence; no actual whole fruit is used in the process. I asked the Beams folks about the phrase on the label, "Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Infused With Natural Flavors," and if they tussled with the government over the exact wording. No, they said. Surprisingly they had no problem whatsoever.

What's not on the bottle is the word "liqueur." For whatever reason, Beam seems averse to calling Red Stag a liqueur, though, technically, as it is alcoholic beverage that has been flavored and sweetened, it is by definition a liqueur. One of the Beam people explained to me that a liqueur bears the connotation of possibly containing suspect ingredients, but that doesn't really pan out. There may be some such liqueurs on the market, but there are also many, many, fine, upstanding liqueurs. Perhaps the word "liqueur" don't register as a positive with their designated target audience. Moreover, Jim Beam invented the drink to introduce non-bourbon drinkers to bourbon, not introduce non-bourbon drinkers to liqueurs.

Bad Liquor Advertising

After years of surveying liquor advertising in subways car and stations, on the sides of buses, on bus shelters and telephone booths, and on the side of huge buildings in Times Square, it is my general contention that most liquor advertising is mind-numbingly, sense-offendingly bad. The approach of most campaigns appears to be to play to the sense of screamingly bad taste that apparently living in the core of us all.

Vodka is the greatest offender. I can think of few vodka ads right now that don't cause me to involuntarily turn away in revulsion. Gin is usually on the more dignified side. Take this Tanqueray ad. There are no trashy women in sight, no tattooed men. And I can live with the slogan "Resist Simple," even is the word "Simple" is reverse mirrored version of itself.

But, "Depth Your Mouth Can See"? It's a sentence any self-respected English major (as I am) would rebel against on sight. That phrase has a few miles to go if it's going to see the city limits of clever. And, somehow, the word "see" and "mouth" in the same sentence makes my stomach flip a bit. If resisting simple means the embracing of incomprehensible sentiments, I'll take simple.